Comment Policy, Social Guidelines

Top 10 Reasons Your Customer Service Fails

It’s no secret that when the time comes to evaluate your customer service, the finger pointing begins – and all fingers point suspiciously somewhere else. Let’s be courageous and look at the Top 10 reasons why customer service fails:

You’re doing all the talking – my grandmother used to say: “we have two ears and one mouth for a reason. They are meant to be used proportionally.”

You are not doing anything about it – you don’t follow through with the feedback you request.

Your customer service reps don’t have the power to help – you are putting the most junior and least supported staff up front.

You have no idea of the cost to you of losing customers – if you were paying attention, you would know that good service means you retain more customers. Acquiring new customers costs more.

You see customer service as a cost, not a benefit – when you look at your department as overhead, you tend to under fund it and under staff it.

You are not keeping your brand promises – it does you no good to spend millions in advertising when customers find you difficult to deal with. A good experience is one of the best investments in your brand.

Your product needs help, start there – it is quite natural to think that your baby: your product or service is the best. Well, it may not be and that’s where you need to start helping customers, by providing a better one.

You did not notice the problem, so you’re behind on fixing it – this is how crisis get started.

You don’t have customer service – nobody is assigned to it, nobody owns it.

You don’t listen to your customer service reps – they know what’s going on and they would tell you.

Comments

@LieDharma - listening and getting to "yes" are two increasingly important qualities in human interactions, not just customer service. Imagine what we could do if we did not have to escalate issues.

@Jocelyn - big kudos on your new site and service. What I have seen so far looks engaging and friendly. The issue of scalability is quite common, as is getting used to what may have worked in the past. Keep up the good work and keep remembering who you are and what you are accomplishing with your customers.

Great post. We are in an 'entrepreneurial environment' and have done our best to listen to feedback and not take it personally. Having been on the front lines (since our team is small) it is easy for us to make decisions and resolve problems for an unsatisfied customer. As we grow, we want to make sure that our consumer service team has the power to make decisions and that they listen. We will also continue to answer calls and emails from our customers. We've actually made a few new friends that way!

Thanks Valeria for spotting this points excellently to me who isn't quite often involved with CS roles.

When I tried to fix my notebook, it took almost 2 weeks (you know what notebook for us). I decided to pick the notebook myself, when asking about "why it took so long", the front desk (customer service) tried to explain their company policy, about lead time, blah blah... which I was not persuaded at all, who care about their company policy. I been holding my life on my neck since 2 weeks ago. She didn't even bother to hear me.

A few days later, I sent an e-mail to the CEO, I said I didn't expect to get explanation about his policy. I needed a solution for my notebook. I would be happy just if I was offered a solution (and a little apology word probably).

Valeria, I hope customer service would learn to be actively listening and offering solution to a customer.